The downside of living among your own

My friend David is a progressive, a fan of Bernie Sanders. He came to Madison some years back, after having lived mostly in other college towns since he himself graduated.

Somewhere along the way, it dawned on David that, in a country full of conservatives, he had no conservative friends. He actually became a bit embarrassed about it. “I don’t seem to run into conservatives very often. I began to realize how much of a problem this is, given the rampant polarization in Wisconsin, and nationally.”

Yes, Madisonians, in case you didn’t know it already, you live in a political bubble. There are some conservatives and moderates among you. But, as with a growing number of places in America, a critical mass of your neighbors are on the same page, politically.

In his 2008 book The Big Sort, Bill Bishop showed that Americans are using their ever-increasing mobility to segregate themselves into like-minded clusters. Ideological outposts like Dane and Waukesha counties are going deeper and deeper into the blue or red. And the number of such outposts is multiplying.

There is nothing wicked about people gathering among their own. But what happens once they gather should be of concern to us all.

A study by Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunsteindemonstrates the effects of ideological segregation. All U.S. federal judges were appointed by either a Republican or Democratic president. Thus, every three-judge panel can be described as either RRR, DDD, RRD, or DDR.

Sunstein compared the voting decisions of Ds who are on DDD panels with those of Ds who are on DDR panels. He did the same on the R side. On hybrid panels, it’s two against one. The majority viewpoint can have its way just as easily as if it were a unanimous panel. So one might expect no difference in outcomes between hybrid and unanimous panels.

But Sunstein found that individual members of unanimous panels are significantly less likely to break ideological ranks than majority members of hybrid panels. He concluded that ideological bubbles breed extremism.

The impact of geographic insularity must be understood in tandem with the “big sort.” The twin phenomena reinforce each other in a vicious cycle: As the echo chamber transforms an increasing number of mildly red or blue areas into ideological strongholds, such locales become more easily identifiable and physically accessible to bubble-seekers. Bubbles expand and intensify as new ideologues arrive and grow more extreme in their beliefs. They are thereby marked all the more prominently for future sorters.

Meanwhile, by virtue of their departure, the sorters’ former homes are left with less ideological diversity as well.

No wonder partisan hatred is deepening. In 1960, only about 5 percent of Americans said they would be “displeased” if their child married a member of the opposite political party. But by 2010, half of Republicans and a third of Democrats said that interparty marriage would make them “unhappy.” By 2014, the Pew Research Center determined that “the level of antipathy that members of each party feel toward the opposing party has surged over the past two decades.” And by 2017, it’s hardly news when the son of a president says, of members of the rival party, “to me, they’re not even people.”

This is bad stuff. But I do not blame anyone — or any place — in particular for the wounds that territorial fragmentation is inflicting. There are larger forces at work here. Besides, as we see with the federal judges, not all bubbles are geographic. Records show that, prior to last week’s violent attack on Republican Congress members and staffers, shooter James Hodgkinson had built a virtual cloister for himself on Facebook, and regularly indulged in the dubious comforts that today’s balkanized news media provide.

Human interaction can and should serve as a natural balance to our selective media appetites. And some bubble-dwellers, like my buddy David, are striving to overcome the challenges that their surroundings pose. “I feel like I should do something to broaden my contacts,” he says. “We won’t make progress until more of us are in some kind of dialogue with people on the other side of issues.”

If groups aren’t your thing, consider canvassing for your favorite progressive candidate or cause in one of the many conservative bubbles that are developing within driving distance of Madison. Sure, you’ll get a couple doors slammed on you. But you will also have enriching encounters, with folks you’ll be glad you met.